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After
some nine years out of Rallying, Shenpar decided
to return to its' roots when it joined forces
with another local driver, Ian Titterton,
to build a Peugeot 106 1300 Rallye for use
in the 1999 Mintex Rally Championship. Once
again, Bob's son Simon navigated the Shenpar
backed car. In True Shenpar style the crew
had 100% Success in the rounds that they entered,
and won the class championship. Further
development of the 106 saw the car converted
to Group A specification and the car was entered
for a single venue event at Manby Airfield,
where in its' debut outing it achieved a very
creditable second in class. Encouraged by
this result, the car was entered for the Woodpecker
Rally, where it unfortunately suffered a water
hose failure which resulted in the car being
declared 'Out of Time'. The end of the season
saw further disappointment when the crew of
Ian Titterton and Simon Parkinson rolled the
car out of the Malcolm Wilson Rally whilst
lying fourth in class. Stirred
by the past successes of the 106, Nick and
Simon converted a Hillclimb/Sprint 205 GTi
into a Rally Car and made their debut as a
team at a single venue rally at Manby, achieving
a satisfying 9th in class and 28th overall,
in what was Nick's first attempt at the sport.
Following on from this, the car was converted
to a 1.6 highly modified specification and
prepared for the 2003 ANEMMC Special Stage
championship. Despite their inexperience,
they achieved several top 3 stage times and
finished 3rd in class in the championship. For
2004, a 205 Challenge car was prepared, and
the team entered several of the rounds to
enable Nick to attempt several different types
of rally and pit his skills against nearly
60 fellow competitors, all in similar cars.
as the year progressed, Nick moved from being
14th in class to achieving top 6 stage times,
and to complete the season he entered the
Harold Palin memorial stages and achieved
second in class, and 13th overall, in a standard
engined car. During the year, the 106 was
rebuilt and shaken down in readiness to compete
in the 2005 season.... As
with all good ideas and plans the 2005 foray
into the B.T.R.D.A. series did not materialise.
Time was required to assist customers' cars
to be prepared, and unfortunately this meant
the team only turned out for a disastrous
run on the Premier Stages. To offset this,we
were delighted by the results our customers
achieved, and it was good to know we enabled
them to have a successful and enjoyable year.
2006
saw the Shenpar team out on the D'Isis Rally
at MIRA, and they came away with a very strong
3rd in class. Customerwise, it was a very
good year.
Micau Morris in his 309, and Martin Hill (106
Rallye) winning their class championships,
and the Fuller family, in a 205, achieving
many top three positions. In
the BTRDA stars of the future, a Shenpar engine
powered at least one of the front runners.
In the Autograss stockhatch championship,
Jamie Lee relied on a Shenpar engine to give
him outright championship victory.
In
1988, Bob's eldest son, Simon, had his
rallying debut, co-driving a Shenpar backed
Group A 205 with Ralph Blore at the wheel.
The pair had great success in their year
together, finishing 1st in class and 3rd
overall Navigator for Simon, in the A.M.M.C
rally championship.
The
Peugeot GTI Rally Challenge was the next
stage forward and in 1990 Simon teamed
up with local driver Charles Knifton to
navigate in his Shenpar supported 205
The
Challenge offered a tremendous amount of experience
for aspiring rally teams using a combination
of competitive events and professional training
days. The partnership fared well and after Six
rallies, one race and a rallycross event the
Shenpar machine finished a competitive 3rd in
class at the end of the Championship.
